OpenVMS Alpha System Dump Analyzer Utility

This document provides a comprehensive guide for system programmers on utilizing the System Dump Analyzer (SDA) on OpenVMS Alpha version 7.0. It covers the following key areas:

• System Management: Procedures for capturing and maintaining crash dump files (SYSDUMP.DMP or PAGEFILE.SYS).
• SDA Usage: Instructions for invoking the utility for both post-failure analysis and examining running systems.
• Context Management: Managing CPU and process contexts for accurate diagnosis.
• Command Reference: Details on SDA command syntax, expression evaluation, and common commands such as SHOW, EXAMINE, FORMAT, and MAP.
• Debugging Procedures: Step-by-step methods for investigating system failures, fatal exceptions, and illegal page faults.
• Extension Commands: Usage of the CLUE set of commands for automated and enhanced log extraction and analysis.

The manual is structured to assist users in interpreting system data structures to determine the cause of system hangs or failures, and includes numerous examples and command descriptions.